Forget day trips to the beach; kidnapping is the new weekend getaway in the indie dramedy Take Me, which sees Netflix star Taylor Schilling tackling one of her wildest (and best-acted) roles yet as Anna St. Blair, a headstrong professional who hires the floundering founder (director-star Pat Healy, sporting a fabulously absurd toupee) of a boutique abduction business to whisk her away as the willing victim of a staged criminal plot. With deep pockets and a high threshold for pain (she actively wants him to slap her around), Anna’s requests gradually intensify as the film progresses, culminating in a sobering conclusion that offers fresh perspective on the tried-and-true formula of self-exploratory cinema: In order to find ourselves, sometimes we have to, uh, forcibly take another soul along for the ride. —Joey Nolfi (@joeynolfi)

HollywoodChicago.com: What quality did Taylor Schilling bring to the role of Anna that surprised even you?

Healy: It was a surprise in the extent to which she took the role. I certainly saw that in ‘Orange is the New Black,’ because she could be airy and funny, but also having dramatic chops when called upon. I kept thinking again of Carole Lombard, how she could be this beautiful and glamorous movie star, yet she could be hilarious or dramatic. She did the screwball roles where she drags some schlub down the rabbit hole, and Taylor can do that as well. She was first on my list of people who I knew I could get the script to, and she was the first to see it.

When we actually shot it, she really surprised and exceeded my expectations on how far she took the character. It gave a great and tangible meta quality to the film, with two people putting on a ‘show,’ but my character not knowing when it is a show and when it isn’t. As a director, supposedly controlling the scenario, I thought I had that authority as well, but also found that I wasn’t in control at times either, and it all worked out well.

If Taylor Schilling was actually stuck in jail with anyone, she would pick Carl Sagan or Oprah Winfrey as cell mates.

“There would be lots to talk about. Lots. I would be taking notes,” she said.

The star of the hit Netflix TV series Orange Is The New Black was talking to journalists at the London hotel in New York City to promote the fifth season, which premieres on June 9.

Pretty and delicate, the 32-year-old US actress was dressed head to toe in Marc Jacobs, definitely relieved to shed the prison garb that she wears as felon Piper Chapman in the show, which revolves around how she and a host of other colourful characters learn to survive prison life and deal with each other.

It is her most prominent role to date, after starring in films like The Lucky One (2012) and Argo (2012).

I felt like she was on such a clear track. She knew so clearly what she wanted, and there was something really attractive about that. She’s also brilliant, so there were always two things happening. I thought of her as a bit of an addict needing to get her fix and there was a specific recipe of being dominated and then dominating that she needed to experience to be able to go on with her life. And that interested me.

Take Me is largely made up of intimate scenes between you and Pat Healy. Did you two improvise and did any of your many physical scenes provide for on-set comedy?

The scene we improvised a lot was the key scene. There is a part where Ray swallows a car key whole [in an attempt to keep Anna from escaping], and it was just so gross and so awful. We made up a lot of that scene, because it was just so disgusting, and they left it all in. But there were a lot of scenes where we ended up in fits of laughter. There’s this part where I throw a bar of soap at him and I’m supposed to keep hitting him very hard. Everybody thought I was going to miss and we wouldn’t have to worry about it, but I didn’t miss. I’m a good aim. So I kept nailing him in the face and I thought that was pretty funny. He was fine, but that was pretty wild. I underestimated my abilities.

How do you compare Anna to your starring character on Orange Is the New Black, Piper Chapman?

The manipulative aspect of Anna does seem similar to Piper, there’s a manipulation that they both are doing. But I really saw them as two separate entities. They are different in a lot of ways. What happens here is that Anna believes both she and Ray are in on the game. Whereas with Piper, nobody is in on the game (laughing).

Piper’s big flaw is that she constantly makes herself a victim of scenarios. Meanwhile Anna shatters the damsel-in-distress trope. How did it feel to switch to playing Anna, who appears to be so in charge?

I had so much fun playing Anna. Like most indie movies, we shot it really quickly. It was one of the quickest shoots I have ever been on because it somehow just soared. It was really fun to play something where she was always in the game, but then there was this other track and two parallel lives of both of them enjoying playing the game so much and getting a kick out of it. And for Anna, not knowing that she was completely manipulating Ray. In her mind, she just thought he was playing the game really f—ing well. There’s nothing about her that’s sinister or evil, because she really thinks she’s finally met her match. Someone who can bring the tears and the blood and be so involved. Filming this movie was sheer pleasure. When you make movies — particularly with the Duplasses, who I love — it’s about nothing other than enjoying making the film. It’s not about the money or the luxury of it and it then leaves space to just play. It felt like camp for a little while or something.

You recently wrapped your next indie movie, Fam-i-ly. Since you have to be selective and film between seasons of Orange, why this role and movie?

I just finished shooting it and I’m so excited about that movie. Filming that movie felt like filming on the first days of Orange. This was the only other experience I’ve had on camera where it felt like that first season and just like lightening in a bottle a little bit. Where you don’t hear peoples’ reactions to it and are just in your own bubble, almost like a fantasy land, because the outside doesn’t exist yet. There’s no commentary on it. It’s like first falling in love where you think, “Oh, there’s this about you and that about you.” That’s sort of what Fam-i-ly felt like. We all had so much fun filming and believe in the material so much.

You gained weight to play Kate, who is described as a binge-eater. Was this the first time you transformed your body for a role?

Yes. It was so fun. Everything about it. She is an interesting kind of broken, sad woman, but also really funny. It’s another really funny movie. She’s very different than Anna in Take Me. She’s a piece of work, an interesting woman who is taking care of her 12-year-old niece for a couple weeks and who helps her through a time in her life where she has gender issues and really feels uncomfortable in herself. And they bond over that.

What can we expect from the new season of Orange (on Netflix June 9) and how does this season taking place over three days continue to raise the stakes?

In prison, the real stakes of your life are so heightened, it’s as heightened as It can be because your life is falling apart. But the collective stakes for the first time are heightened. Where everyone is dealing with the same crisis and has the same issue and in that, it’s really interesting to see alliances come together and what parts of people come to shine. It’s very cool to have everybody on the same mission together. There are some scenes where we’re all together [like last season’s death scene], but this season still breaks it up a bit with all the characters.

What ensues is a game of cat-and-mouse in which the reality of Ray and Anna’s situation becomes increasingly fuzzy, both to audiences and, at various points, to Ray and Anna as well. Ray begins as a self-assured schlub, but as circumstances spiral out of control, he starts projecting confidence as a means of staving off panic, if not outright terror (“I’m very good at what I do,” he repeatedly remarks, less convincing each time). Healy embodies his well-intentioned loon with just the right measure of buffoonish arrogance and pitifulness, and he’s ably matched by the equally alluring and intimidating Schilling, whose Anna vacillates so wildly between pleading victim and dangerous threat that it’s never quite clear what’s genuine and what’s an act.

Healy’s direction is similarly to the point, its unassuming compositions and curt edits enhancing the proceedings’ droll brusqueness. Heather McIntosh’s bouncy score is laced with darker tones, thereby providing suitable musical accompaniment for a tale that dive-bombs into that hazy gray area between terror and comedy. By ordeal’s end, its harried characters may not know which way is up, but “Take Me” maintains throughout a firm grip on its farcical absurdity.